Anatolia

anthropologist

a social scientist who studies humankind and human cultures; physical anthropologists specialize in the origins and classifications of human; culture anthropologists study the societies and cultures of humans, often by living among the people they are studying.

artisan

Assyrians

Semitic people who originated thousands of years ago along the upper Tigris River and used iron weapons and chariots from 800 B.C. to 600 B.C. to conquer a large empire that included the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and parts of Anatolia and Persia.

Chaldeans

Christianity

religion that evolved from Judaism and centered on a belief in the divinity of Jesus; developed after the death of Jesus when disciples spread his teachings beyond Palestine to gentiles in Anatolia, Greece, and Rome.

cultural diffusion

cuneiform

wedge-shaped characters, usually pressed into clay with a stick; one of the first forms of writing developed by the Sumerians around 3300 B.C.; symbols could represent objects and ideas; the prevailing form of writing in the Middle East for thousands of years.

Diaspora

the forced dispersal of the Jews from their homeland in Palestine, first by the Chaldeans in 586 B.C. and then by the Romans in 70 A.D.; the establishment of Jewish communities throughout the Roman Empire and later throughout Europe.

dynasty

Fertile Crescent

a semi-circular belt of land that can support agriculture in a region of Southwest Asia that is mostly desert or semi-arid land; an important route for cultural diffusion and migration in ancient times; the western part of the Fertile Crescent receives adequate rainfall from the Mediterranean Sea; the region at the north of the crescent also receives rainfall because westerly winds are not blocked by mountains; the eastern part of the crescent between the Tigris River and Euphrates River is a plain that can support agriculture with irrigation from the rivers.

gentiles

Hebrew

the Semitic language of the Jews in biblical times that fell into disuse for 2,500 years after the Babylonian Captivity, except as the language of religion, learning, and literature; revived as the official and the spoken language of Israel.

Hittites

Indo-Europeans

tall, fair-skinned people who originated in the Caucasus region and spread west throughout Europe and east to Persia and India between 2000 B.C. and 1500 B.C.; their family of languages comprise most of the languages of Europe, Farsi, and other languages of Iran, and languages on the subcontinent of India; the ancestors of the Persians and Hittites of ancient times; sometimes called Aryans.

Iron Age

the period after the Stone Age and the Bronze Age when early humans learned to smelt and forge iron; a period in human history when humans made tools and weapons of iron that were superior to earlier bronze implements; spread throughout Southwest Asia and Egypt by 1200 B.C. and signaled the end of the Neolithic period.

irrigation

Jews

Semitic people of ancient times and their modern descendants who in ancient times began as tribes along the Mediterranean coast in what is now Israel, lived for a period of time in Egypt, and returned to establish two kingdoms that lasted for two hundred years until conquered by the Assyrians in the 700s B.C.; forced to leave their homeland by Chaldeans and Romans. Jews dispersed throughout the Middle East, the Roman Empire, and later throughout the world, but retained their common religious beliefs and ethnic identity despite the wide separation of Jewish communities; people whose religious belief in one God and an ethical code had a major impact on the later religions of Christianity and Islam.

Judaism

the religion developed among the ancient Hebrews based on a belief in one God and an ethical code revealed to them by Moses and the prophets, written down in the Torah, and interpreted over the centuries by rabbis; the cultural, social, and religious practices of the Jews.

Kush

the first African kingdom to develop in ancient times after Egypt; the land south of Egypt along the upper Nile conquered by the Egyptians around 1500 B.C. and independent by 1000 B.C.; an empire that continued as a major trading center in what is now Sudan until 350 A.D.

Levant

lingua franca

the common spoken language in a region where many ethnic groups speak their own distinct languages or dialects; the language of commerce and everyday communication for groups speaking different languages.

Lydians

Mesopotamia

Greek for "the land between the rivers"; refers to the region in ancient times between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where civilization first developed between 4000 B.C. and 3500 B.C.; now part of Iraq, Mesopotamia was the homeland in ancient times of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians, and Assyrians.

monotheistic

Mosaic law

the laws of Moses; an ethical code and religious beliefs announced to the Jews by the prophet Moses as revelations from God and recited as oral tradition until written down; the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament.

Neolithic period

New Stone Age

the period about 10,000 years ago when people began farming and domesticating animals; a period in human cultural and economic development that began at different times in different parts of the world.

nomads

Palestine

meaning "the land of the Philistines," a people who came from the sea in ancient times to control land on the Mediterranean coast; the name used for the region for thousands of years until the independence of Israel; the region that now includes Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and western Jordan; Canaan in ancient times.

Persians

Indo-Europeans who migrated south from the Caucasus region between 4,000 and 3,500 years ago to settle in the region that later became Iran; people who established the largest empire in ancient times before that of Alexander the Great.

pharaoh

Phoenicians

trading and seafaring people who lived in ancient times on the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East in what is now Lebanon; colonizers who settled on the coast of North Africa in the 9th century B.C. to establish the city of Carthage in what is now Tunisia; people who spread the alphabet throughout the Mediterranean.

prophet

pyramids

massive monuments of ancient Egypt having a square base and four triangular faces that meet at a single point at the top; built over or around a tomb; the Great Pyramid of Cheops was originally 482 feet high and 756 feet long at each side of the base; it is the only remaining "wonder" of the Seven Wonders of the World.

scribe

in ancient times, a person whose skill was to read and write cuneiform or hieroglyphic writing; one who maintained public records, and reading and writing for the rest of the population that was illiterate.

Sumerians

Torah

the first five books of the Old Testament, the primary body and wisdom of Jewish law believed by Jews to have been revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and transmitted by him to the Jewish people; the scrolls containing the first five books of the Bible and used in religious rituals.

ziggurats

stepped pyramids made of sun-dried bricks in Mesopotamia that served as temples to the gods; some of the steps were wide enough to form terraces with plantings; a shrine was at the top where priests made offerings to the gods.

Zoroastrianism

a religion founded in the 6th century B.C. that became widespread in Persia and Mesopotamia in ancient times; worship of a supreme god, Ahura Mazda, who enlists the good deeds of followers in the eternal struggle of good against evil and light against darkness; the dominant religion of Persia until the Arab conquest; a religion that influenced Christianity.